---
title: They could not tell whose flags the ships bore. — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: They could not tell whose flags the ships bore. Who acts: harbors, flags. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 24, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 24, sentence 100

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They could not tell whose flags the ships bore.

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**Who acts:** harbors, flags · **What happens:** not tell, bear · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (harbors, flags), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg65965:24:102
# text = They could not tell whose flags the ships bore.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	flags	flag	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	ships	ship	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
9	bore	bear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | could | harbors *= harbor* |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **bear** | past | flags |  |  |  |  | the ships *nsubj* | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Project Gutenberg book 65965 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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